Don Dubbins
Encyclopedia
Don Dubbins originally Donald Dubbins, was an American actor of film and television who in his early career usually played younger military roles, particularly in such classic pictures as From Here to Eternity
(1953) and The Caine Mutiny
(1954). Screen giant James Cagney
took a liking to Dubbins and procured roles for him in two 1956 films, These Wilder Years
and Tribute to a Bad Man
. In the former, Dubbins played Cagney's long-lost adopted son; in the latter, he was in a romantic triangle with cattle boss Cagney for the affections of a senorita
. In 1957, Dubbins played a callow young United States Marines private
in Jack Webb
's The D.I.
In 1958, Dubbins was cast in From the Earth to the Moon
, a science fiction
picture based on Jules Verne
's novel of the same title
.
As Dubbins matured, he appeared in such films as The Prize in 1963, The Illustrated Man
(based on a Ray Bradbury
novel) in 1969, and Death Wish II
in 1982.
Dubbins appeared in many television roles, including four episodes each of CBS's Gunsmoke
, Perry Mason
and Rawhide
in Season 1/14 Incident of the Dog Days. In 1960, Dubbins appeared in the episode "Elegy
" of CBS's The Twilight Zone
. That same year he guest starred with Mel Torme
in NBC
's crime drama Dan Raven
starring Skip Homeier
. In 1961, he played a deputy who inadvertently killed his outlaw-brother in an episode of Stagecoach West
, a Four Star Television
series
on ABC
. He later appeared on the CBS anthology series The Lloyd Bridges Show
, and with Walter Brennan
in ABC's The Guns of Will Sonnett
. He appeared in the 1965 pilot episode of I Dream of Jeannie
, and returned for one of the series' final episodes (as a different character) in 1970. In 1966, Dubbins appeared with Robert F. Simon
as guest stars in the episode "Long Journey to Leavenworth
" in the NBC series The Road West
, starring Barry Sullivan
, Andrew Prine
, and Glenn Corbett
.
Dubbins appeared twice on NBC's Little House on the Prairie
with Michael Landon
and five times on CBS's Barnaby Jones
crime drama with Buddy Ebsen
. Dubbins appeared in several episodes of Jack Webb's Dragnet 1967 series on NBC. Dubbins played the part of Billy Carter in "The Incident of the Dog Days" on Rawhide
.
Dubbins' last TV roles were in episodes of CBS's Knots Landing
(1979), ABC's Dynasty
(1981), and NBC's Highway to Heaven
(1984).
The Brooklyn-born Dubbins retired to Greenville, South Carolina
, where his last acting was at the Warehouse Theater as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman
. He succumbed to cancer
at the age of sixty-three.
Lillian was born in England.
From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity is a 1953 drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on the novel of the same name by James Jones. It deals with the troubles of soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra and Ernest Borgnine stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the...
(1953) and The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny (film)
The Caine Mutiny is a 1954 American drama film set during World War II, directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Stanley Kramer. It stars Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray, and is based on the 1951 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk The Caine Mutiny. The film...
(1954). Screen giant James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
took a liking to Dubbins and procured roles for him in two 1956 films, These Wilder Years
These Wilder Years
These Wilder Years is a 1956 drama film directed by Roy Rowland, and starring James Cagney and Barbara Stanwyck. A businessman tries to find the illegitimate son he gave up to an orphanage many years ago.-Cast:*James Cagney as Steve Bradford...
and Tribute to a Bad Man
Tribute to a Bad Man
Tribute to a Bad Man is a 1956 western film starring James Cagney about a rancher whose harsh enforcement of frontier justice alienates the woman he loves. It was directed by Robert Wise and based on the short story "Hanging's for the Lucky" by Jack Schaefer.-Plot:Rustlers rob horses belonging to...
. In the former, Dubbins played Cagney's long-lost adopted son; in the latter, he was in a romantic triangle with cattle boss Cagney for the affections of a senorita
Senorita
Señorita is the Spanish honorific equivalent of Miss.Other uses:*Señorita banana, a banana cultivar from the Philippines.*Señorita Colombia, Colombian beauty contest*Señorita EP, a five-song extended play from Superdrag...
. In 1957, Dubbins played a callow young United States Marines private
Private (rank)
A Private is a soldier of the lowest military rank .In modern military parlance, 'Private' is shortened to 'Pte' in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and to 'Pvt.' in the United States.Notably both Sir Fitzroy MacLean and Enoch Powell are examples of, rare, rapid career...
in Jack Webb
Jack Webb
John Randolph "Jack" Webb , also known by the pseudonym John Randolph, was an American actor, television producer, director and screenwriter, who is most famous for his role as Sergeant Joe Friday in the radio and television series Dragnet...
's The D.I.
The D.I. (film)
The D.I. is a black-and-white military drama film starring, produced and directed by Jack Webb. The film was produced by Jack Webb's production company Mark VII Limited and distributed by Warner Brothers....
In 1958, Dubbins was cast in From the Earth to the Moon
From the Earth to the Moon (film)
From the Earth to the Moon is a Technicolor science fiction film adaptation of the Jules Verne novel of the same name. It starred Joseph Cotten, George Sanders, Debra Paget, and Don Dubbins...
, a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
picture based on Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
's novel of the same title
From the Earth to the Moon
From the Earth to the Moon is a humorous science fantasy novel by Jules Verne and is one of the earliest entries in that genre. It tells the story of the president of a post-American Civil War gun club in Baltimore, his rival, a Philadelphia maker of armor, and a Frenchman, who build an enormous...
.
As Dubbins matured, he appeared in such films as The Prize in 1963, The Illustrated Man
The Illustrated Man
The Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
(based on a Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
novel) in 1969, and Death Wish II
Death Wish II
Death Wish II is a 1982 sequel to the 1974 film. It stars Charles Bronson, was written by David Engelbach and directed by Michael Winner....
in 1982.
Dubbins appeared in many television roles, including four episodes each of CBS's Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
, Perry Mason
Perry Mason
Perry Mason is a fictional character, a defense attorney who was the main character in works of detective fiction authored by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason was featured in more than 80 novels and short stories, most of which had a plot involving his client's murder trial...
and Rawhide
Rawhide (TV series)
Rawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965 until January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...
in Season 1/14 Incident of the Dog Days. In 1960, Dubbins appeared in the episode "Elegy
Elegy (The Twilight Zone)
"Elegy" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.-Synopsis:Running out of fuel, astronauts Meyers, Webber, and Kirby land their spaceship on a remote asteroid. They find the place quite Earth-like with buildings and people, but walk around and begin to wonder...
" of CBS's The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...
. That same year he guest starred with Mel Torme
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
in NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's crime drama Dan Raven
Dan Raven
Dan Raven is a crime drama starring Skip Homeier , a former child actor in films, which aired on NBC between January 23, 1960, and January 6, 1961. The setting of the series is the famous Sunset Strip of West Hollywood, California...
starring Skip Homeier
Skip Homeier
-Career:Homeier began acting as Skippy Homeier at the age of six, on the radio show Portia Faces Life. From 1943 until 1944 he played the role of Emil in the Broadway play, Tomorrow the World. Cast as a child indoctrinated into Nazism, who is brought to the United States from Germany following the...
. In 1961, he played a deputy who inadvertently killed his outlaw-brother in an episode of Stagecoach West
Stagecoach West (TV series)
Stagecoach West is a highly-acclaimed Western drama television series which ran for thirty-eight episodes on the ABC network from October 4, 1960, until June 27, 1961. Characters Luke Perry and Simon Kane operate the Timberland Stage Line from Missouri to San Francisco...
, a Four Star Television
Four Star Television
Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, was an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Ida Lupino, and Charles Boyer, the company produced many well-known shows of the early days of...
series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
. He later appeared on the CBS anthology series The Lloyd Bridges Show
The Lloyd Bridges Show
The Lloyd Bridges Show is an American anthology drama series produced by Aaron Spelling, which aired on CBS from September 11, 1962 to May 28, 1963, starring and hosted by Lloyd Bridges.-Synopsis:...
, and with Walter Brennan
Walter Brennan
Walter Brennan was an American actor. Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on three separate occasions, which is currently the record for most wins.-Early life:...
in ABC's The Guns of Will Sonnett
The Guns of Will Sonnett
The Guns of Will Sonnett is a Western television series set in the 1870s which ran on the ABC television network from 1967 to 1969. The series was the first production collaboration between Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas, who would later go on to produce one of ABC's most-memorable hits, The Mod...
. He appeared in the 1965 pilot episode of I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...
, and returned for one of the series' final episodes (as a different character) in 1970. In 1966, Dubbins appeared with Robert F. Simon
Robert F. Simon
Robert F. Simon was an American character actor, often portraying military or authority figure roles. Though his face was recognized by audiences, he was mostly unknown by name...
as guest stars in the episode "Long Journey to Leavenworth
Leavenworth, Kansas
Leavenworth is the largest city and county seat of Leavenworth County, in the U.S. state of Kansas and within the Kansas City, Missouri Metropolitan Area. Located in the northeast portion of the state, it is on the west bank of the Missouri River. As of the 2010 census, the city population was...
" in the NBC series The Road West
The Road West
The Road West is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from September 12, 1966 to May 1, 1967 for twenty-nine episodes with rebroadcasts continuing until August 28. The hour-long series, sponsored by Kraft Foods, aired in the 9 p.m...
, starring Barry Sullivan
Barry Sullivan (actor)
Barry Sullivan was an American movie actor who appeared in over 100 movies from the 1930s to the 1980s.Born in New York City, Sullivan fell into acting when in college playing semi-pro football...
, Andrew Prine
Andrew Prine
Andrew Lewis Prine is an American film, stage, and television actor.-Early life and career:Prine was born in Jennings, Florida. After graduation from Andrew Jackson High School in Miami, Prine made his acting debut three years later in an episode of CBS U.S. Steel Hour...
, and Glenn Corbett
Glenn Corbett
Glenn Corbett was an American actor best known for his role on CBS's adventure drama Route 66.-Acting career:...
.
Dubbins appeared twice on NBC's Little House on the Prairie
Little House on the Prairie (TV series)
Little House on the Prairie is an American Western drama television series, starring Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert, about a family living on a farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s and 1880s. The show was an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's best-selling series of Little House books...
with Michael Landon
Michael Landon
Michael Landon was an American actor, writer, director, and producer. He is widely known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza , Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie , and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven...
and five times on CBS's Barnaby Jones
Barnaby Jones
Barnaby Jones is a television detective series starring Buddy Ebsen and Lee Meriwether as father- and daughter-in-law who run a private detective firm in Los Angeles. A spin-off from Cannon, the show ran on CBS from January 28, 1973 to April 3, 1980, beginning as a midseason replacement...
crime drama with Buddy Ebsen
Buddy Ebsen
Buddy Ebsen was an American character actor and dancer. A performer for seven decades, he had starring roles as Jed Clampett in the long-running television series The Beverly Hillbillies and as the title character in the 1970s detective series Barnaby Jones, and played Barnaby Jones in the movie...
. Dubbins appeared in several episodes of Jack Webb's Dragnet 1967 series on NBC. Dubbins played the part of Billy Carter in "The Incident of the Dog Days" on Rawhide
Rawhide (TV series)
Rawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965 until January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...
.
Dubbins' last TV roles were in episodes of CBS's Knots Landing
Knots Landing
Knots Landing is an American primetime television soap opera that aired from December 27, 1979 to May 13, 1993 on CBS. Set in a fictitious coastal suburb of Los Angeles in California, the show centered on the lives of four married couples living in a cul-de-sac, Seaview Circle...
(1979), ABC's Dynasty
Dynasty (TV series)
Dynasty is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 12, 1981 to May 11, 1989. It was created by Richard & Esther Shapiro and produced by Aaron Spelling, and revolved around the Carringtons, a wealthy oil family living in Denver, Colorado...
(1981), and NBC's Highway to Heaven
Highway to Heaven
Highway to Heaven is an American television drama series which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.- Season 1 :- Season 2 :- Season 3 :- Season 4 :- Season 5 :...
(1984).
The Brooklyn-born Dubbins retired to Greenville, South Carolina
Greenville, South Carolina
-Law and government:The city of Greenville adopted the Council-Manager form of municipal government in 1976.-History:The area was part of the Cherokee Nation's protected grounds after the Treaty of 1763, which ended the French and Indian War. No White man was allowed to enter, though some families...
, where his last acting was at the Warehouse Theater as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was the recipient of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. Premiered at the Morosco Theatre in February 1949, the original production ran for a total of 742 performances.-Plot :Willy Loman...
. He succumbed to cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
at the age of sixty-three.
External links
Mother Lillian and Fred Dubbins lived in Queens NYLillian was born in England.